US Senate votes to let broadband ISPs sell your browser histories The US Senate has voted to kill privacy rules that would have prevented ISPs from selling your browser history, under the fantastic logic that mobile operators aren't under the same restriction. The vote on Thursday broke along party lines, of course, and a decision to invoke the obscure Congressional Review Act of 1996 in …
Because that "article" was an embarrassment to read and Andrew should be reminded his name is linked to it at every possible time, nothing Donald and his gang are doing are in the interests of not only American citizens but anyone else on this whole planet. If it doesn't put money into Donald's pocket, one of Donald's acquaintances or whichever Russian is currently holding the USB drive with his golden shower film you wont ever see it mentioned. American TV and internet access is becoming as big a joke as the current administration, severe caps, services bundled together and now your whole browser history up for sale. Next step will be compulsory adverts every 30 minutes if you want to continue browsing.
So it's just like last month. Forgive me if I fail to see how striking rules designed for the sole purpose of strengthen the Google grip on data and haven't actually been implemented makes much difference. Calling them privacy rules is akin to calling a lower than desired increase in spending a spending cut.
Unfortunately, "Government of the people, for the Corporations and by the Corporations shall not perish from the Earth."
Whoever has the money (corporations) gives our rulers those campaign contributions that get them elected. This will not change, and it doesn't really matter a whole lot which party is in power. Money talks, and the rest of us can either
1) Get angry enough to vote for someone else -- except the someone else will also be on same payroll, so don't expect much change
2) Complain a lot but do nothing
3) Start a revolution (but once the new government is in place, see #1)
In the long run, it's unlikely that there is anything the average person can do to help the situation. Possibly if everyone got mad enough to write their Congresscritter and complain about this vote, it might be stopped. For now. But then the FCC will still deep-six it. And before long, they will sneak the same damn thing through Congress. They always do.
Just remember, whenever you use any of our modern electronic media, THEY are listening and taking notes, "they" being NSA/GCHQ (or whatever flavor exists in your country), your ISP or phone carrier and anyone they feel like selling/sharing everything you say or do with. There is no privacy with electronic media. None. If you want to communicate privately with someone, go into a room with them and make sure there are no electronic gadgets there. (And if you're real paranoid, remember, even windows can be a problem.) Otherwise, whenever you converse with anyone, assume THEY are listening, because they pretty much are. You can try using ProtonMail or something, but eventually the governments will either backdoor it or outlaw it, so we'll all be back to square one.
As A Brit all i can say is
You reap what you sow, you voted in Donald Trump, now you are having to pay the price.
It looks like he wants to run America like as private company with him as the Ceo and Owner, just do as i say. Senate, Congress, whay do i need them for I will just issue executive orders.
I am president, The law is for other people!
I thought it was the insanely democratic (ahem) Electoral College that voted him in?
Seeing America now is like seeing the world 60+ year ago. Or watching a 45 year old who still hasn't worked out how to tie his shoelaces after all his friends worked it out 40 years before.
> it doesn't really matter a whole lot which party is in power
I agree with you in principle, but in this case, the vote split along party lines, with democrats voting against.
For what it's worth, every republican and democratic presidential candidate was anti-privacy, except for Sanders.
Just want to know. This just sounds like the old trick of voting against something once you know it is going to pass.
Edit. Two republicans skipped out. Since one of them is Senator Paul I stick by my statement above.
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=115&session=1&vote=00094
Republican senators think their favourite male enhancement products should be marketed more vigorously as part of their health plan package. (Are there female Republican senators? If so substitute appropriate toys.)
I guess the heyday of internet was when you had to read through thick manuals to install all the fiddly bits that came on a floppy glued on the manual. Internet hasn't been the same since it became possible for women and children (meaning genral public) to join the club.
Her because. . .
Will Rogers got it right, and he died in 1935:
Lobbyists have more offices in Washington than the President. You see, the President only tells Congress what they should do. Lobbyists tell'em what they will do.
America has the best politicians money can buy.
There are plenty more in similar vein, but it's simply too depressing...
In the interest of balance I ought perhaps to have included that fact that I doubt if the UK is any better. Bits of Corporate Britain don't seem to have over much difficulty arranging meetings with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and / or other cabinet ministers; I greatly doubt if the Taxpayers' Alliance gets the same priviledge.
And ignoring our elected representatives is even easier, both individually and collectively.
They also need to ban circumventing or obfuscating your ISP's attempts to monetize your browsing protect your consumer freedoms. After all if they can't sell it, you're harming a business, and since businesses have the rights of people with none of those pesky responsibilities, that's basically assault and battery on a person.
If you have an ideological motive for wanting privacy, then you're committing assault for political gain, which is terrorism. Usage of a foreign proxy service would then be foreign terrorism which would allow the FBI and NSA to openly investigate these horrific crimes and possibly be punishable by drone strikes.
All because a bunch of liberals want to place restrictions on our corporate citizens that own the very foundation of the world's internet.
@DNTP
"After all if they can't sell it, you're harming a business, and since businesses have the rights of people with none of those pesky responsibilities, that's basically assault and battery on a person."
The RIAA and MPAA have been banging on about it for years by equating "loss of sales/profits" due to piracy with "theft". I don't necessarily mind them hunting the almighty dollar, but the least they can do is stop contributing to the degradation of intelligence in society by calling it something more accurate.
I mean honestly, if I could 3D print a fully working car, you bet your arse I'd download one. I'd suggest too that anyone who wouldn't is either a fool or a liar.
That would make an interesting court case trying it with wiretapping laws. It comes back to what I mentioned below - if you've consented to it then they can do it. They also have to get your explicit consent and give you the option to change your mind easily without other penalty (such as "if you don't consent you can't have service")
"if you've consented to it then they can do it."
That seems to be a fundamental difference between the US and UK/Europe. Here in the UK you can't "consent" to give away your rights/consumer protection by agreeing to Ts&Cs. That would be an "unfair contract" and at best, those clauses are null and void, at worst the entire "contract" could be struck down.
Most of these onerous Ts&Cs will attempt to take away your rights with lots of jargon and legalese but they will, at the very end, state something along the lines of "this contract does not over-ride your legal rights", effectively negating chunks of what you just agreed to.
If it's truly for the benefit of the American People, then they should have replaced it with an opt-in scheme, so we have to explicitly allow all these people to to share our data. Of course, this would take us back to something like the old telephone slamming days, where all sorts of small print would give that consent without us spotting it.
California sales tax records show a 100,000% rise in VPN Subscriptions.
Don't these people have even half a brain? If they did they would know that anyone with more that that could defeat the whole plan by using a VPN?
Oh wait, it is a ploy by the ISP's to get more revenue.
Dear Joe Sixpack,
As of 1st April 2017 we will be selling your internet browsing history to Ad Agencies. We have a new service where for the measly sum of $19.99/per month we can channel all your internet activity through the PRC and therefore hide it from our history collection system. Click the link below to sign up to the service today.
Yours
Comcast
PS
Does Jan Sixpack know about your frequent visits to ******.sex? We can stop her finding out for another $19.99 (+tax) per month. Click this other link to sign up for both services.
the ability to keep up in the arms-race that will arise between people hoping to avoid their ISP's DNS treachery and well-heeled and technically savvy ISPs devising ever more devious ways to keep MITMing them. On Comcast's budget, the can afford to suborn pretty much every CA on the planet, as just one example. Sure, sign up for a VPN, but also take a couple courses in network security so you can understand the articles about how to defeat the latest attack. You can read them via what you might think is myrandomvpnservice.com, and is actually served by Comcast, like their speedtest proxies.
It would be interesting to see how this affects the number of US customers VPN providers accrue over the coming weeks.
Are the US public (outside of the IT community) savvy enough to realise this is happening, and that they can avoid the data slurp by using a VPN? Anyone in Trumpland care to hazard an opinion?
So that's the new BS for "We're going to pimp your browser history to whoever can afford to buy it."
And
"Selling your location and personal information to marketers: this is something that some ISPs do now but are loathe to admit because they fear a consumer backlash. "
Well to slightly restate in the words of Creepy Eric Schmidt perhaps if they fear a consumer backlash that much, maybe they shouldn't be doing it in the first place?
To our US readers, say hello to the "data fetishist," US style, for whom more data (especially yours) is good data and all data (held indefinitely) is best of all.
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